Interviewing Pedring López

We bring you today an interview with Philippine director Pedring López, who unveils his future projects and how he sees action Philippine movies nowadays. It’s been a real pleasure interviewing him such in a close way.
His last movie, Maria, is available on Netflix. A frenetic action movie starring Cristine Reyes. We leave you a link to our review.

© Jorgia C. Romero

Mike y sus chinos: Before we begin, congratulations for your film Maria and for all the success you’ve had on Netflix. And above all, thank you for giving us a little of your time.

Pedring López: Thank you for having me here and thank you for a very nice piece about my film, Maria.

MysC: Can you explain us how a project like Maria arrives to your hands? Why do you decide to shoot the film?

PL: Maria, actually has been brewing in my head for a couple of years and I really wanted to do a strong Filipino female character film which we really didn’t have in the Philippines. We went on to create a whole universe based on the initial film Maria, which is part of the trilogy for the film.

© Jorgia C. Romero

MysC: We love Cristine Reyes’ charisma and performance in the movie. It’s a great character. Why do you choose her?

PL: Cristine is just perfect for the role and I think the role was made for her. The first time I met Cristine in her Viva management office I immediately knew Maria was her. I said on other interviews it was her eyes that sold me. There was a certain vulnerability in her, but in a way you can see that she is a fighter. I saw Maria’s character with Cristine. Plus she is a mom and have been training in Jitjit-su so I think the physicality of the role came naturally with her.

MysC: Can you tell us about the physic preparation and work out that she had to do for the movie?

PL: I had her trained for a couple of weeks prior to filming, but we were also training in between shoot days prepping the actual fights in the film before we did the actual shoot. Cristine was also training both mix martial arts and physical training while we were filming.

© Jorgia C. Romero

MysC: What is the thing you like most about shooting an action movie? And what is the most complicated thing?

PL: I just love shooting action films, I’ve been a fan of the genre since I was very young. I think the complicated part is really making the sequences as believable as we can. As an independent director in Asia budgets can really get complicated. Sometimes the budgets are limited for action sequences so sometimes you really need to craft the scene in such a way that it doesn’t break the bank but you still get the shots you need. I am fortunate to work with some of the best people in the business over here and so far have been fortunate to have Blackops Studios and Viva Films to have my back on some of the crazy ideas I have.

MysC: What kind of influences did you have when you created the world and the action of Maria?

PL: I was really and still am really heavily influenced by eighties action films, but I was really inspired by Indonesian action films like the Merantau and the Raid series, Gareth (Evans) really put ultra-violent Asian films back in the map. I love Asian action films and I guess we feed off each other. The John Wick series was really a love letter to Asia, but that also influenced me so much on a level where I want the genre of Filipino action films to be. I’m actually like a sponge when it comes to influences as I try to watch as many films that I can.
The look of Maria was always been the grit of Manila, I wanted to capture the grittiness but still have a very clean and stylized image as what me and my DP did on most of the locations.

© Jorgia C. Romero

MysC: Can you tell us about some anecdotes from the shooting?

PL: Oh this is a tough one as there was a lot, but on the top of my list, and I think with everyone who worked on my set, is probably the last sequence of the film on the pier. Since I only had 4 days to shoot that scene and since we have to close down part of the pier, we had to shoot 4 days straight to manage the budget and also the intensity of the scene. We knew that weather would be a problem since we were shooting in September and in the Philippines that’s really the rainy season so I decided to shoot everything wet as if it was already raining so if it rains then we can still continue filming. What we didn’t expected was a huge storm to hit the Philippines, so on our 3rd day we can feel the storm brewing. The fourth and last day we still have to shoot Greg’s sniper scene on top of a building near the pier and the storm is about make land fall, we were literally shooting as the winds was starting to build up. We were so lucky that we finished everything in time and when we packed up that’s the time the storm hit Manila. The second one would be my first day, which was the market fight scene which was a pretty big scene. I was supposed to do an easy first two days but was postponed due to location and scheduling issues and we already booked the part of the market so we had to make it the first day which was baptism of fire.

© Jorgia C. Romero

MysC: We see that lately there are action films from the Philippines, quite powerful and with a lot of success, for example, BUYBUST by Erik Matti and your recent production. Do you think that Philippine action movies are evolving? How do you see its future?

PL: I guess that the Philippine action genre is going to where it’s supposed to evolve. There are only a few of us that really choose the genre and I feel that we’ve been pushing hard to see what all of us envision the genre to go. And with more producers and studios now interested in bankrolling more action films I think it will only become better and better.

MysC: Speaking about the future, recently you announce the sequel of Maria with Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman as characters. Tell us about a little bit of what we will see in Maria 2. What kind of surprises can we expect of the sequel?

PL: Yes, I am pretty excited with the Maria sequel. Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman as characters are quite powerful and I think people will be happy to see them together. I’m also excited to get Cristine with these guys as I think marrying Filipino martial arts and Indonesia’s Silat will be quite a spectacle to see on screen.

© Jorgia C. Romero

MysC: If you had the option, what kind of genre besides action would you like to shoot and why?

PL: I’m always drawn to thrillers and horrors, maybe because growing up I was also watching a lot of horror and slasher films. But I ultimately I want to fused the two genre, like what we did with The Entity (Nilalang), which was a horror-action hybrid. I do want to make a sci-fi action horror someday.

MysC: Do you have any future projects in mind besides Maria’s sequel?

PL: Right now I’m busy with Maria pre-production but I have another one coming up which is an action-thriller set in 1980’s Manila, this one is with an American main cast and is slated to shoot early next year. Plus Viva and me are currently developing a couple of titles that I will be directing as well as coming on board a creative producer for some of their titles.

MysC: Thank you very much for your time, we hope to see you soon your future projects.

PL: Thank you!

© Jorgia C. Romero